


His Wizard

by IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Kid Fic, M/M, Muggleborn Gellert Grindelwald, Seer Gellert Grindelwald, kind of, or the first three chapters anyway
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:28:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29609433
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis/pseuds/IhaveAbadfeelingAboutThis
Summary: All his life, Gellert had been seeing the Wizard with the long red hair in visions and in dreams, but would he ever meet him in person?A modern American AU Grindeldore, following Gellert from ages five through nineteen(Rated General Audiences the first 4 chapters, but since I have to rate for the whole fic... the Mature rating comes into play later, at an age-appropriate time)
Relationships: Albus Dumbledore/Gellert Grindelwald
Kudos: 32





	1. 28 July 2008

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Candyphoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Candyphoenix/gifts).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was inspired by the following prompt from Candyphoenix:  
> Modern Day AU with Magic, Gellert has known what Albus looked like since he was tiny and has become uh, obsessed is a kind word to describe it. He's got a whole room that is just...art of Albus he's done, to keep the image of the person he hasn't met in his mind fresh. Bonus if Albus sees the room after they meet and is like "I'm in danger, aren't I?"

**Chapter One  
** **In Which Gellert Makes a Scene**  
(Age Five)

“Really, Gellert? You don’t want that doll. Let’s go into the next aisle. You haven’t seen everything yet.”

Daddy had said that he could have one toy, any toy he wanted, as long as it was less than 20 dollars. _Any_ toy, he had said. And it was his _birthday_.

“I _do_ want it!”

Gellert’s dad started to walk away, but Gellert held fast. If Mommy were here, she would let him have it. “Mommy says boys can play with dolls.”

“Yeah, well, I’m fairly positive your mother would ki – uh – be deeply unhappy with me if you came home with a _Disney Princess_. There are lots of _other_ dolls – ”

Five-year old Gellert stomped his foot. “I want _this_ one! And he is _not_ a princess! He is a _powerful wizard_.”

Daddy had the slightly scared look that meant that he was going to give in as long as Gellert didn’t give up.

“That’s _Ariel_ , Buddy. _She_ is a mermaid princess.”

“Where’s the tail?” Gellert demanded.

“Uh – yeah, ok. She’s got feet and she’s wearing a dress… But that’s not…” Gellert’s dad started to mutter to himself, “Why _don’t they_ make wizard dolls? Or some sort of boy…” His father started scanning the shelves. He grabbed a box. “Here’s Ken. He could be a Wizard, I guess? We could ask your grandmother – she could maybe make him a cape…”

“No. _My_ wizard has _red hair_ ,” Gellert insisted. “ _Long_ red hair.” And this doll his dad liked, his lips didn’t have any color to them – why were his lips the same color as his skin? It looked weird.

The wizard Gellert was thinking of didn’t wear sparkly dresses like the ‘princess doll,’ but he did wear sparkly robes, sometimes, and sometimes he wore long skirts with pretty patterns on them, like the ones that Aunt Angela wore in the summertime. Gellert liked Aunt Angela. She took him berry picking and liked to have spinning contests in the backyard – who could spin the longest before falling over. Gellert always won.

But boys _could_ wear dresses. That was the sort of thing that Mommy knew. Did Daddy know boys could wear dresses? Maybe that was why Daddy was confused. Daddy never wore dresses, or skirts, or sparkly blue nail polish like Gellert’s wizard did sometimes. And the doll Daddy called ‘Ariel’ was lumpy, like Mommy. It was true that the red-haired wizard was _shaped_ more like the doll named ‘Ken.’

And sometimes he dressed _kind of_ like Ken.

Gellert thought hard. _Any toy he wanted_. He looked at the red-haired doll, and then back at the doll in the box in his father’s hands. What he _wanted_ was a doll with Ken’s body, and Ariel’s head. Ken’s jeans were ok, but his shirt should be purple. And it should have a rainbow-colored dragon on it. And the doll should have an animal friend. Ariel had a crab. Gellert’s doll should have a bird. A big red bird with a long red tail. _That_ was the doll he wanted. He wanted _His Wizard_. It was his birthday, and he should get to have a wizard doll if that was what he wanted. Daddy had _promised_.

Gellert stomped his feet and growled in frustration. His father gave a startled shout and dropped the box.

“Daddy?” Gellert asked uncertainly. The box his dad had been holding had fallen face first to the floor. On the back of the box was a beautiful red bird, like the one that followed his wizard around, sometimes, and stars and spirals in all different colors. He bent down to pick up the box.

“Gellert –“

Daddy sounded anxious. Gellert looked up at him – his face was _really_ scared. Gellert had only seen Daddy that scared once, when Gellert had jumped from the loft down onto the sofa on the first floor. He had been perfectly fine – he had floated softly down like a feather. He _had been_ in a hurry to get downstairs to the TV because it was time to watch Blue’s Clues, but the jumping trick had been fun, so he had leapt up right away, planning to run up the stairs and try it again. But Daddy, looking so scared that it had scared Gellert too, had picked him up and held him too tight and made him promise to _never_ do it again.

“Don’t touch the box, Buddy.”

But the box was going to be something _fun_ , like the jumping. Gellert knew now that Daddy had been scared for _no reason_. (He had made Gellert promise not to jump off the loft for _no reason_ , and that meant that he had been denied something _fun_ for _no reason_ , which was infuriating.) Daddy would be ok when he saw that nothing bad happened when Gellert touched the box. Like Gellert was, the morning after that night when Mommy had made Gellert stay in bed _even though_ two of his dresser drawers were open. Gellert had waited up all night worrying that someone bad would come into the room through his drawer, _but they didn’t_. Sometimes, Mommy said, ‘we are scared when we don’t need to be.’ Besides, he had to see, before Daddy made him make a promise again.

Gellert picked up the box and turned it over. Inside was a doll that _really did_ look like the pretty boy wizard. Long red hair down to his waist, pink lips with a friendly smile, big blue eyes, broad shoulders, long legs. (Gellert’s wizard was _very_ tall.) He was dressed exactly the way Gellert had imagined, and he even had a bird sitting on his shoulder.

“His bird is named ‘Fawkes,’” Gellert informed his dad. Gellert didn’t know how he knew that, but he just knew.

Gellert’s dad made a noise like he was choking on a piece of chicken. Gellert stood and patted him as high up on his back as he could reach. “Thanks, Buddy,” Daddy said unsteadily.

Gellert took his dad’s hand and started dragging him towards the front of the store. “And Grandma will make wizard’s robes for him? He doesn’t wear jeans all the time. Just sometimes. Jeans are better for climbing trees and…”

A woman appeared in front of them and interrupted Gellert. “I’m sorry, sir, you are going to have to come with me.”

“And what is it –“ Gellert’s dad started to say. The woman pointed a stick at him and Gellert’s dad immediately relaxed and smiled at her. “Of course!” he said easily. Gellert needed one of those sticks!

“Is that – is that a _magic wand?_ ” Gellert asked, excited.

The woman looked down at him and smiled. “Yes, it is a magic wand. You and I and your Dad are going to walk to your car and talk about magic together.”

“Ok,” Gellert agreed, and started walking to the cash register.

“This way,” the woman insisted, taking Gellert’s arm and steering him towards the door.

“We have to pay for the doll,” Gellert protested.

“Can I see it?” the woman asked.

Gellert showed her the doll. The bird on the doll’s shoulder spread its wings, and the dragon on his shirt breathed a puff of fire.

“Ah. I see,” the woman said. “I’m afraid that this is the rare case where it would be better _not_ to pay.”

Gellert didn’t move. Mommy had told him many times that it was wrong to take things without paying for them. If that woman wanted him to go without paying, she could point her wand at him and _make_ him do it. Then it would be _her_ fault, and Gellert wouldn’t get in trouble with Mommy. Probably.

“They don’t sell dolls like that here,” the woman explained. “They will be confused. Do you – do other things that confuse people, sometimes?”

Gellert nodded.

“Things that – scare people?”

Gellert glanced up at his weirdly blank looking dad. He nodded again.

“Paying for this doll will scare people. Ok? The cashier will be scared and confused. I will – make sure the doll gets paid for, ok?”

Gellert understood. This was one of those times when he would be in trouble either way. But leaving without paying would keep him from getting into trouble _now_. Gellert took his dad’s hand, and together they followed the strange woman out of the store.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm feeling more protective of my characters than usual, so... comments are off on this one. Kudos, however, are always appreciated :)


	2. 24 November 2011

**Chapter Two  
In Which Gellert Makes a Friend**  
(Age Eight)

There was a crashing sound, followed by his grandmother shouting a couple of words that Gellert knew but was not allowed to use. The house was too noisy today. Even his room wasn’t far enough away to not be bothered by it. ‘No closed doors’ was Gellert’s least favorite rule in the whole world.

He looked through his crayon box, looking for the crayon he used for his wizard’s eyes. There it was. He knew it was the right one, because it had become stubby from overuse. Gellert pulled out the white cardboard sleeve and dumped the crayons in order to reach it.

Sky blue. He made a circle on a piece of scrap paper. It was not _exactly_ right. Crayons were a little unsatisfying, now that Aunt Angela had taught him how to mix paint colors – he could have any color he wanted! There were _way_ more than 64 colors in the world. But Mom had said no paint today – Gellert was sharing the upstairs bathroom with his grandparents, and his Aunt Jill and Aunt Tonya, and Mom had said that it would be rude to ‘hog the bathroom washing paint brushes, and anyway, canvas is expensive.’

But you could _kind of_ mix crayons, too. Last time he had colored over the sky blue with turquoise blue and it had turned out better. He started looking through the crayons on his desk to see if the one he wanted was there. If he couldn’t find it, he might just paint anyway. He could probably get away with it. The adults were all busy in the kitchen.

“Hey, Gellert?”

Or maybe they weren’t. Gellert looked up and saw Aunt Tonya. She was kind of new, by Aunt standards, in that Gellert could remember Aunt Jill having a girlfriend before Aunt Tonya, but they were supposed to pretend that she had not existed, which was fine, since Gellert hadn’t liked her. But it was still weird to call someone ‘Aunt’ that you had just met that past summer.

“Hey.”

“Can I come in?”

“Sure,” Gellert said.

Tonya came in and sat down crisscross-applesauce on the end of Gellert’s bed.

“Wow,” she said. “I love your room.”

“Thanks,” Gellert said.

“Who’s this?” Tonya asked, pointing to one of his favorite drawings. It was the wizard, barefoot, wearing shorts and a t-shirt and standing next to a sunflower. Usually, the wizard was older when he saw him. This drawing reproduced the only time that he had seen him as – well, probably about Gellert’s age, based on how much taller the sunflower was. His hair was not as long as usual, but almost touched his shoulders. He was holding a frisbee. Gellert was getting pretty good at disc golf, himself (without even using his magic which was _not allowed_.) He had been practicing with his dad so that one day, when they finally met, he and his wizard could play a game together.

“Oh, he’s a wizard.”

Tonya smiled. “He doesn’t _look like_ a wizard.” Then she pointed to one of Gellert’s newest paintings, “ _He_ looks like a wizard.”

The wizard was wearing his formal dueling robes – red with gold squiggles along the bottom edge and around the cuffs of his sleeves. He was holding his wand out, but loose, his elbow bent and at rest, not fully extended as if he were thrusting a foil. (Gellert had been taking fencing lessons from the coach at his mom’s college. Mom was always looking for No-Maj equivalents to Wizard things. ‘It’s important that you find ways to root yourself in your culture of origin,’ she said. Like he was going to leave home for school and somehow forget the first eleven years of his life if he didn’t understand that No-Maj had dueling, too.)

That painting was one of the only depictions of the wizard in his robes that was still out where someone could see it. It was really hard to draw or paint magic happening without accidentally animating the art, so Gellert had had to hide almost all of the drawings in which he ‘looked like a wizard,’ and a few other ‘ordinary’ looking ones, including Gellert’s very favorite one: the wizard standing in a field on a windy day, his hair getting in his face and making him laugh. Every once in a while, he’d push it back and grin out at Gellert. Then he’d drop his hand, and his hair would whip all around him again. He was wearing a full flowy skirt that went down almost to his ankles. It had blue and purple vines on it, and it was pressing tightly against his left leg and stretching out to his right, rippling in the wind like a flag. His green sweater was heavy, unmoving.

Gellert had had to hide the doll, too – the one that Dad had named ‘Kenariel.’ Gellert couldn’t figure out how to make Fawkes stop flying around or the dragon on the t-shirt to stop breathing fire. And _sometimes_ the wizard doll would shift its weight, or yawn, or wink at Gellert. Gellert had become used to having him on his nightstand – the past two nights, it had been difficult falling asleep without watching him. But… there was no keeping his relatives out of his room, and magic was supposed to be a secret.

‘What if your Grandma comes to wake you in the morning and she sees your doll moving?’ his Dad had asked. Gellert couldn’t think why that would be so terrible – his parents were No-Maj, after all, and _they_ knew about magic. But his caseworker had come to the house the day after his eighth birthday with a chart showing how many obliviations she’d had to do in the past year due to ‘accidents,’ and she had said that if he didn’t ‘make an effort to reverse this trend,’ then she would recommend against him being given a wand on his eleventh birthday. So Gellert was ‘making an effort.’

Gellert hated hiding all the coolest parts of his life – all the amazing things he could do. Sometimes at night when he couldn’t sleep, he would lay in bed and would whisper ‘Ilvermorny,’ just to remind himself that one day, he would get to be in a whole school _full_ of wizards, and not have to hide anything anymore. But that was _three more years_.

“That’s the same guy,” Gellert said. “It is only that he is younger in that picture with the sunflowers.”

“Wizards wear shorts?”

“Sure. Shorts are practical. Wizards wear all kinds of things, depending on what they’re doing. Just like anyone else.”

“Oh, ok,” Aunt Tonya said in that tone of voice grownups used when they were pretending to believe you. “So, these are all the _same_ wizard. What’s his name?”

Gellert did not know the wizard’s name. Which was so annoying. He knew his _bird’s_ name – why didn’t he know _his_ name? His parents had asked the same question, and his mom had become upset about it for some reason, so eventually he had just made up a name. He knew it was the wrong name, but it was just too difficult to explain.

“Rick?” Gellert answered.

Aunt Tonya snorted. “There are some who call me… Tim?” she said, which – made no sense. Gellert had no idea who Tim was, or what he had to do with anything, but saying it made Aunt Tonya laugh, and she laughed so long and hard that he had to laugh, too.

“Why Rick?” she asked, once she had settled down.

“I don’t know,” Gellert said. “I had to pick something.”

“I guess so,” Aunt Tonya agreed.

Aunt Tonya looked around his room a little, not saying anything.

“It’s loud in the kitchen,” Gellert observed. “Too many people.”

“Yeah,” Aunt Tonya agreed. “Dottie…” She trailed off, like she thought she wasn’t allowed to complain.

“Oh, Grandma is always really bossy in the kitchen. And stressed out. And she yells a lot.”

“She doesn’t yell at your dad.”

“He’s the only one. And it’s because he flirts with her. It makes Mom crazy.”

Aunt Tonya laughed. Gellert liked her laugh. He hoped Aunt Jill kept this Aunt.

Gellert remembered that his aunts were sleeping on the sofa bed in the living room downstairs, which meant – “You don’t have a room!” Gellert realized. “You can hang out here and talk or read or whatever. If Aunt Jill doesn’t mind being left alone with Grandma, that is.”

“No, she told me to come hang out with you.”

“Cool. Do you like to draw? I can grab another chair from the playroom.”

“I kind of su-uh- am terrible at drawing.”

Gellert smirked. She had almost said ‘sucks.’ He and his friends said ‘sucks’ at school all the time, but adults seemed to think it was a bad word. It wasn’t like she had said… Gellert couldn’t think of a truly terrible word that would have worked in that sentence. ‘I kind of shit at drawing?’ That wasn’t the way that word worked, Gellert was pretty sure.

“Nobody _sucks_ at drawing,” Gellert said. “But we don’t have to do it if you don’t like it. We could build something or have a battle with my knights. One team has a cannon, and the other team has a catapult.”

“I call team catapult!” Tonya said, hopping off the bed excitedly.

Gellert smiled. People always wanted the catapult, but the cannon was so much easier to aim. Hopefully, Tonya was not a grumpy loser. If she was cool about it, he’d let her have the cannon, next time.


	3. 21 December 2014

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gellert is using his wand at home. I'm assuming that MACUSA's policies about any number of things are not identical to the British Ministry's policies - including the way that they monitor and regulate underage magic use.

**Chapter Three  
** In Which Gellert Has an Epiphany  
(Age Eleven)

“Gellert! How many times do I have to tell you to _put down the drop cloth first?_ ”

Gellert startled and knocked over his cup of water. He groaned. Now Mom was going to say, ‘This is why you are supposed to use the drop cloth.’ He just – he hadn’t been able to paint for months. He’d been in a hurry and had forgotten. And it wasn’t like wizards _needed_ drop cloths.

He pointed his wand at the place where the water spilled. “Tergeo.” It was as if the spill had never happened. He turned to his mom. “See? No, problem.”

“I still want you using a drop cloth.”

“Fine, ok.”

Gellert got up and walked over to the shelf to grab the old picnic blanket that his mom had given him to use under his painting and began carefully rearranging his workspace.

His mother was still just _standing there_. It made him feel a little uneasy.

“Anything else?”

“It’s – umm. You only got home yesterday. And – I was wondering if you wanted to do anything?”

“I _am_ doing something.”

The next day, they were going to leave for his grandmother’s house, and then from there they would go see his other grandparents, so that he was going to be out of the house for a whole week. Then he’d have only one more week of painting before leaving again for ten weeks. Hopefully his parents would let him stay at home for Spring Break, and he would not have to travel _again_.

“Yeah, no, I see that. I just – I missed you.”

Oh. “I missed you, too, Mom.” Gellert _had_ missed her. Her and Dad, both. “You want to watch me paint? Sometimes Dad watches me paint and just – plays guitar or something.”

“Is it ok if I talk to you?”

Gellert should have known that Mom would not be able to sit silently and just enjoy being in the same room together. It was like, if they weren’t interacting, it didn’t count for her.

“I’m kind of – in a bad mood right now.”

“Yeah, that was – what I wanted to talk about?”

Gellert looked at his canvas. He had drawn the outline already of what he wanted to paint – it was more of a close up than he usually painted – just from the chest up. This was going to be the first time he was working in color since August. (He needed to remember to bring colored pencils to school when he went back. And two more sketch pads.) Gellert missed his wizard. He needed something larger than life-sized, so that he could soak in the blue of his eyes and the red of his hair and the pink of his lips. The wizard would be wearing something blue. He looked really good in blue. This was the first time he was creating a composite, rather than working from a specific memory, and he was pretty happy with his sketch.

It was going to have to wait though.

“I can’t talk and paint, so... just let me put some plastic wrap over my palette, and then we can…” Gellert looked out the window. It had just started to snow. “We can take a walk around campus. There won’t be any students, right? So, we won’t be bothered?”

His mother agreed, and fifteen minutes later, they were walking out of the house, across town, and climbing over the low stone wall that surrounded the grounds of the college where his mother was a professor.

The snow was not sticking to the paved paths yet, but the grass was starting to become white.

On the way over, his mom had talked about some of the papers her students had written for her class on marriage and the family, and then they had talked through the arguments against the Defense of Marriage Act, and speculated about whether the Supreme Court would overturn it completely, or leave each state free to extend or deny marriage rights to couples like his Aunts Jill and Tonya, who had gotten married last Christmas, just two months after New Jersey had made it legal for them to do so.

“So… you seemed disappointed in Ilvermorny. Are you – I’ve been talking to friends on Facebook –“

The case worker from MACUSA who had accompanied Gellert and his father home from Target all those years ago had introduced Gellert’s parents to the ‘no-Maj parents of Wix’ group on Facebook. Gellert had come to dread the words ‘I’ve been talking to friends on Facebook.’

“ – and there are other options. There’s another magical school on the West Coast. Or we could get you a tutor.”

“Mom, no. It’s – no. It’s fine.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, Gell, but you only say, ‘it’s fine,’ when it _isn’t_ fine.”

Gellert didn’t know what to say to that, so he didn’t say anything. His mom filled the silence as she tended to do.

“I just want you to be happy.”

“I _am_ , Mom. I’m just – I’m happy at Ilvermorny. _Really_ happy. I am learning how to control my magic, and how to _undo_ my magic, which Professor Garrison says is _way_ more important. And I’m meeting other Wix. And I’m not having to hide what I can do anymore – I’m making friends. Like, was Vijay ever _really_ my friend? Or Dustin? If I couldn’t tell them that I could do magic? I mean – it was like I was lying to everyone _all the time_. It’s only – well – no, it’s two things. One is that I miss you and Dad. A lot. I got home yesterday in time for dinner, and then I learned that Dad was going to be gone all day today, and that then we’re going around to other people’s houses –“

“Not ‘other people,’ Gellert – your grandparents – they really want to see you, and hear all about school –“

“Yeah, but I _can’t_ tell them ‘all about school,’ can I?”

“Oh, Honey. I’m sorry. You’re right.”

It was also true that Mom and Dad did not talk or act like themselves when they were around their parents – so he was going to miss them _even being in the same room with them_ , which sucked. But that would just hurt his mom’s feelings to say. That one she would make her fault, somehow.

“What’s the other thing?”

Ugh. He didn’t want to tell her. He should make something up. But if he didn’t tell somebody the truth, he was going to _explode_. And there was no one to tell. _You could tell Dad_. Yeah, not until nearly January, though. And Dad would just tell Mom anyway. _She probably won’t bring it up, if he does tell her._ Yeah, or she _would_ bring it up at some totally random time, like an ambush.

Yeah, no. Telling the truth was just going to be easier.

“Umm. Rick?”

“Your imaginary friend, Rick?”

Imaginary. Friend. This was _exactly_ why Gellert avoided talking to her about… a lot of things.

“Mom. Rick is – there is _nothing_ about Rick that resembles an ‘imaginary friend.’ He’s – he’s a _real_ person who exists _someplace else_. An imaginary friend is something small kids have for a year or two, that’s invisible to everyone else, but actually interacts with them where they are and – this – his name isn’t even Rick, ok? I named him _for you_. Because it bothered _you_ that I didn’t know his name. But I don’t like calling him that, because he is _real_ , and wherever he is he has a _real_ name and I don’t know what it is! Or if I’ll ever meet him. So, to say that he’s – calling him imaginary is a _lie_ , and saying ‘friend’ is just – it’s _cruel_. And – “

And now Gellert was crying which was _mortifying_. And cold. Wet snotty face on a snowy day. And he was wearing a nylon coat, so rubbing his face with his sleeve would just smear it around.

“Let’s – go to my office, Honey.”

“ _Don’t_ call me _Honey_. I am _eleven years old_. My name is _Gellert_.”

"Ok, Gellert."

His mother was uncharacteristically silent as they made their way towards the building that held the sociology, anthropology, and women’s studies offices. Gellert felt a little badly for yelling at her.

“Gell is fine,” he conceded.

“Ok,” his mom acknowledged. “I’m probably going to still screw up and call you Honey sometimes. But call me on it when I get it wrong. And I’ll try to stick to Gell and Gellert. Unless – is Sweetheart ok?”

“Mom, no. Just – stick to my name, ok?”

“So, I can’t call you Baby? Muffin? Mr. Rosy-toes?”

Mr. Rosy-toes?!!

She started laughing, but still managed to gasp out, “Angel… Cake?” Oh God. She thought she was being _funny_.

“Mom. Seriously. Stop it.”

“Stopping,” she agreed.

They stomped the snow off their feet before entering the building and walked up to her second floor office. Gellert sat on the familiar sofa where he had napped and read on sick days. His mother handed him a box of tissues, and he blew his nose and wiped his face. She brought him a trashcan to put the pile of soiled tissues in and then sat on the sofa next to him.

“I shouldn’t have called him an imaginary friend, Gellert. I’m so sorry. I knew better than that. I just – it’s really overwhelming for me, sometimes. When you were born, I thought I’d get to keep you to myself until you were eighteen, but now you’ve left home already! You’re growing up so fast, and – it wasn’t fair of me. Just because I wasn’t ready to think about… you’re so young, and – I love you. You know that, right?”

What. Was. She. Talking about?

“Umm. Yeah. I know.”

“Yes, he’s real. Your wizard is a real person. I – yes, I believe you. I’ve… known that for a few years now.”

“You believe me?” Gellert echoed incredulously. She’d known for _years_? They hadn’t spoken about this in _years_. _Why hadn’t she told him?_ Why had it taken crying about it in the snow for her to _tell_ him?

“I do, but – but he’s not really _your_ wizard, right now, is he? He’s _a_ wizard. And you don’t know what his name is, or where he is, or if you will ever meet him. And that – bothers you.”

“Of course, it _bothers_ me. Who _wouldn’t_ want to meet him? If they knew he existed? He’s – the magic he can do is _so_ brilliant. And his smile makes me want to smile, and he wears the coolest clothes –“

His mom laughed. “Sometimes. If what you are drawing is accurate, that boy thinks that fuchsia and yellow go together. And there was that one with the floppy straw hat…”

“ _Everyone_ wears crazy things when they’re gardening, Mom… But, yeah, you meant the one with the yellow pants? With that aloha shirt? It didn’t turn out quite – you should have seen it. It was a lighter pink than I made it, and it had white and yellow hibiscus on it, and… the bright green leaves were ok. If the whole shirt had been green… with white hibiscus only? No, that would probably not be flashy enough. Better a green shirt with… parrots on it? Maybe? Anyway. That outfit was…”

“A bold choice?” his mom asked with a smile.

“Not the best match for his complexion, I was going to say – he usually does better on that count. The bold colors he wears are actually _perfect_ for his hair and skin tone. I mean, some of what he wears is _insane_ , I’ll grant you, but it looks good _on him_ , and he looks happy wearing it. He wears what he likes without caring what anyone else thinks about it, and that’s – inspirational, really. Being yourself without letting other people’s judgments stop you?”

“Yes, it is,” his mom agreed. Why was she smiling so much? It was weird. It was the smile she wore when she was thought he was doing something amazing, but all he was doing was talking about the wizard’s clothes. In the past, when he’d brought up the wizard, she’d frown and look uncomfortable. Gellert wanted to like that his mother was smiling at him, but it was starting to make him suspicious.

“What else do you know about him?” she asked. “How old is he? What is his family like?”

“I – all I get are little glimpses,” Gellert protested. Should he know more? Was he not paying careful enough attention? Should he be collecting clues? He had assumed that collecting clues would not be necessary – that they would meet without Gellert looking for him. Already he had questioned whether it would weird the wizard out that Gellert had known what he looked like before they met. How much weirder would it seem for him to have also filled a notebook (or a box of index cards – his mom was a big believer in index cards) with facts like foods he had seen the wizard eating, and books he had seen him reading, and spells he had seen him performing?

 _But you wouldn’t have to tell him…_ No. Gellert _would_ end up telling him eventually. You can’t keep something like that from a friend forever. _And you can’t be friends with someone if you never meet them._ True. And it seemed possible now that they might not meet if Gellert didn’t make an effort. Surely that would be an acceptable reason to keep notes. A _forgivable_ reason.

Gellert did know a couple of things for certain already. Mom had asked how old he was. “He can’t be a lot older than me. When he’s wearing No-Maj clothing, it looks to be – well, it doesn’t look old and _weird_ , like in those old photos of Dad in high school. It looks – modern. So – I mean –“ Gellert took a deep breath. “I thought – he’s a wizard, and he’s _about_ my age – I thought I’d meet him at Ilvermorny. And… I didn’t. He’s not there.”

“I’m so sorry. That must have been disappointing. Maybe he’s a year younger than you? If he were even… say, two months younger than you, he’d be coming _next_ year.”

“Maybe. I’ve just been – I’ve been seeing him as a teenager or – like a college student or something – since forever. I’ve always thought of him as – I’ve looked up to him. It hadn’t occurred to me that he might be _younger_.”

“Well. You need to start thinking of him as an _equal_. You are a cool and powerful wizard, yourself, and ‘looking up to him’ is no basis for a relationship.”

WHAT?!

“A – _relationship?!_ “

“I’m not saying – well, ok, yes, I _am_ saying. Oh, your father is going to hate that I’m having this conversation without him…”

“You’ve been talking to Dad? About… me – wizard – _relationship?!_ “ Gellert was sputtering. He knew he was. He just – his brain was completely short-circuiting.

“No! Well – not initially.”

Not _initially?_ What did _that_ mean – not _initially?_

“We were talking about the drawings. Because I didn’t know – you were so obsessed, and I didn’t know if some wizard had possessed you or was taking advantage of – this magic, your world – it is all so new, and I don’t know the things people might be capable of... it’s – ”

“Oh my God. Tell me you did not talk to your Facebook group about this. Mother. Some of those people are parents of people I _know_ , now. The magical world is _small_.”

“No, Gell, I didn’t talk about this with _anyone_ but your father, and – it’s really reassuring, actually. He – there’s this story about his great-grandfather Grindelwald. Not a lot of people came to the United States from Switzerland in the 1890s. There wasn’t much of a reason to leave – it wasn’t overcrowded, the economy wasn’t bad, it was stable politically. But his great-grandfather had – there’s this story that he had been having visions of a girl ever since he was small, ever since he could remember. And it made him restless. He insisted she was real, and everyone in his family thought he was crazy, the way that he was looking for this ‘imaginary’ person wherever he went. Then one day, he declared that she was in the United States. He had ‘seen her’ he said, at a parade, and he’d ‘seen’ a flag go past her, and it turned out that it was the United States flag. They told him he was losing his mind, and begged him not to go, but he… he crossed the ocean to find her.”

“And he did? He found her?” Gellert asked, excited.

“He _found_ her,” his mom affirmed, smiling broadly. “It took him a little while. He sailed to the United States when he was sixteen, and he didn’t find her until he was twenty-two. The story that got passed down was not very specific – it’s more of a family legend at this point – so I don’t know if it happened spontaneously, or if he had to follow a trail of clues. I imagine he must have felt discouraged sometimes. But he found her. And they got married and that was your great-great grandmother.“

Gellert was stunned. He was not the only person this had happened to. He was not the only person _in his family_ this had happened to. Sure, not for more than a hundred years, but… wait.

“That’s why you were talking about gay marriage. You think I want to _marry_ this wizard I’ve been drawing.”

Gellert’s mom looked at him and didn’t answer.

“You think that just because –“

“Just because you have been having visions of the same wizard for your _entire life?_ And learned to draw _because of him_ , and have made more than 400 separate pieces of art depicting him?"

His mother had been _counting his drawings?!_ And she called _Gellert_ compulsive.

"Just because you are disappointed with an otherwise _perfect_ school experience because _he’s not there?_ And – Gellert, you performed the most advanced example of accidental magic I have ever heard about _as a five-year old_. Making that doll was nothing like summoning your knight off the top of the fridge after I put it in time out. Making Kenariel - that was _incredibly_ advanced. And you’re a brilliant wizard, so so talented, I know you are, and one day you’ll do much bigger things than that, but right now? That’s a feat you’ve not matched _still_ – and it was driven entirely by your desire to have – well, to have _him_ , I think. The closest you’ve come to doing something that astonishing is when you’ve animated the paintings and drawings you’ve made of _him_.”

“I’m not – I mean – you think – you think I’m _in love with him?_ ”

“I think you are mighty young for that, and that ‘love’ would be too much of a claim to make before even knowing his name. But I’d say that it is maybe natural that you have become… _fixated_ , under the circumstances, and –“

“You think I’m gay.”

His mom just stared at him without answering _again_. First, she couldn’t shut up, and now this _silence_.

Gellert hadn’t really thought about _getting married_ , or about whether he ‘liked’ boys or girls or both, or _anything_ like that. He had only thought about magic, and making friends, and drawing, and his wizard… _And meeting your wizard, and whether your wizard will like you, and spending every day with your wizard forever…_ Oh.

“And you think that I’m fated to meet him?”

“I think you would upend your life trying, is what I think. How often do you see him?”

Gellert thought of his dream the night before – the first dream in which he was _definitely_ in the dream himself with the red-haired wizard, and while he didn’t remember much of it, he strongly remembered the wizard sitting in a chair reading a book and laughing suddenly, and then looking up and saying, ‘Gellert, listen to this –‘ and Gellert remembered feeling so – warm and scrambled inside to see the wizard smile at him, to hear him say his name. Holy crap. Mom was right. He was gay. Totally, _totally_ gay.

“I don’t – umm – I don’t know? Because I don’t remember my dreams all the time, but they told us in science class last year that we dream every night, even if we don’t remember it, so – but I _remember_ him appearing in dreams maybe – once a month? I see him when I’m awake more often, maybe once a week – when I’m sort of flaking out? Like drifting off to sleep, or gazing at the clouds, or – when I was a kid it happened a lot when I was on the swings.”

“You’re _still_ a kid, Gell.”

“A _little_ kid. You know what I mean. Don’t be pedantic.”

His mother snorted. “Ok. I won’t be _pedantic_.”

“Did I not use the word right?” Gellert asked anxiously.

“Oh no, you used it exactly right,” she affirmed. “You were saying? You see him about once a week?”

“Yeah – I – ugh. I’m such a weirdo.”

“Well, you’re _unusual_ , that’s for sure. But that’s not terrible, right? You were talking earlier about being inspired to be yourself?”

“It’s – yeah, but no. That was about doing what makes you happy, and this – I don’t know. I – miss him? Like, when I do see him, it is never for very long. It’s two minutes, and it’s the best I will feel for the whole week. And then – he's gone. So, the art, it’s like – I’m stretching it out, that moment when I saw him. When I’m making a drawing or a painting, he’s all there is? It’s just me trying to get the color of his eyes just right, or the shape of his nose, or recently, the way the light reflects off his hair. You know? And then afterwards, I have something to remind me of what he looks like when he’s not around which – which is almost always. But – nothing I make is very good.”

“What do you mean?! What you make is so good!”

“No, but, it doesn’t really look like him _enough_. Nothing looks like him _enough_. I need art lessons, maybe? They don’t have art class at Ilvermorny – it’s so dumb. Maybe there’s something on YouTube? Or – if I had better tools?”

Gellert had asked for one of those digital art pads, but Dad had said that he was too young for something that expensive – ‘You keep ruining paint brushes, and I’m having to buy you new ones all the time!’ (As if it were the same thing _at all_.) And Mom had said there was no point, because electronics didn’t work at Ilvermorny. Which was idiotic. Why hadn’t someone fixed that?! Electricity had been a thing for more than a hundred years! He knew he would wear them down eventually, but it would be better if ‘eventually’ were ‘now.’

“It didn’t bother me so much when I was younger, but now… I don’t know. I don’t know if I’m really getting _better_ at it.”

“Practice is the main thing, I think. And you’ve been improving more rapidly than I think you recognize. But we can discuss specific strategies after we get back, after Christmas. Or maybe Aunt Angela… she has some artist friends… I’m sorry about all the traveling. I don’t know how we could have gotten out of it, but – “

“It’s fine, Mom.” Gellert remembered what she had said about ‘it’s fine.’ “I mean…”

“You mean you know that there’s nothing I can do about it now, so there’s no point in discussing it?”

“Basically… but also that there’s going to be at least three kinds of pie at Grandma’s house. _And_ cookies. So, it’s not _all_ terrible.”

“True. _That_ at least makes going to her house a treat. Both your grandma’s are good bakers, actually. And Angela will make everyone do charades at least one night. That’s fun”

“And maybe there will be a game on, so I can watch football with Grandpa.”

“Really? You _like_ that?”

“Every time I guess right about the play – about whether the quarterback is going to throw the ball, and then if the pass is going to be completed – I get a quarter. I have to guess before the snap. It’s gotten so I’m right more than half the time, now.”

Gellert’s mother narrowed her eyes. “That’s gambling.”

“ _Noooo_ , because I don’t have to give him anything if I’m _wrong_. It’s _bribery_. Please don’t fuss at him about it. I _routinely_ get more than fifteen dollars a game out of this. And don’t tell Grandma.”

Gellert’s mom sighed. “Fine.” They stood, and she pulled him into a hug. When she let go, she asked, “Ready to head back?”

Gellert turned to look out the window. The snow was still falling, piling up on the tree branches. He wondered if it was snowing wherever his wizard was. _His_ wizard. Saying that sounded different now that he knew: one day, he was going to _marry_ this tall red-haired wizard with the beautiful eyes and the contagious smile and the extremely colorful clothes. It felt – right. Like something he had been just on the edge of knowing for his entire life.

“Yeah, let’s go home.”


	4. 19 December 2016

**Chapter Four**  
**In Which Gellert Draws Something New**  
(Age Thirteen)

The knock at the door pulled Gellert’s attention away from his sketchbook. He looked at the clock: 8:27am. Breakfast, probably.

“Gellert?”

“Come in, Dad.”

The door opened, and sure enough: “You didn’t hear me calling – I’m making pancakes. Your mom’s already at the table.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You wouldn’t know whether you’re hungry or not – you’ve been drawing. Listen. You can finish up your sketch. I’ll hold back some of the batter and make some hot ones when you come down. But _don’t_ start a new one. And try to get to a good stopping point on this one. If you’re not down in fifteen minutes, I’m coming up to get you.”

“Yeah, ok.”

Gellert turned back to his drawing. He heard the door close. He looked at the sketch he had been working on – his wizard was sitting at the desk in his dorm room, slumped down, with his head resting on his arms, thinking. He was a little younger than Gellert in the drawing.

His notebook was almost full of drawings like this one. His wizard wasn’t always happy. Gellert had seen him throw a pot of ink at his bedroom door, after his brother had slammed it behind him. He’d seen him look sad and worried, usually in the company of a pretty blond girl that Gellert _thought_ was his sister – they had the same mouth, the same eyebrows, the same hand gestures. He’d seen him annoyed in class – bored and impatient. He’d seen him scribble angrily on parchment and then set it on fire. Once, Gellert had even seen him cry, curled up under the covers in his bed.

Gellert had started having visions like these – of his wizard when he was _un_ happy – when he was in fourth grade. But he hadn’t drawn them. He wanted his wizard only to be happy, and if only drew him when he was happy (or confident, or powerful) then it was almost like he was creating a better world for his wizard.

But over the last summer, Gellert had started to feel like he was lying. Or being a coward. Or both. His wizard _did_ have bad days. He was a real person, with real emotions, and sometimes those emotions were… not what Gellert wanted for him. But that didn’t make those emotions go away, just because Gellert was ignoring them. So, he’d started drawing _those_ visions and dreams, too. He didn’t linger over them – just quickly got the gesture down, usually. He’d tried doing a detailed study of the wizard’s face when it was sad, one time, and… it had just ruined Gellert’s day. And the day after that one. There were limits to what he could manage. But it made him feel better, usually, to acknowledge that these visions existed. To put the image on paper quickly, and then look at it and think reassuring thoughts at his wizard: that Gellert was going to find him, that things were going to get better when he was older. That he had seen his future, and there was a lot to look forward to.

It wasn’t enough, though. Gellert wished he had found him _already_ , so that he could jinx everyone who had ever hurt him. Nothing too serious, but there were a few people at Hogwarts who he’d like to trip, or make their shoes too tight, or make their homework illegible, or something.

(That was a new development. Gellert had spent the past semester digging up every illustration he could find of as many magical schools as he could, and he had recognized the Hogwarts grounds. Blue, his wizard, was at Hogwarts. Which meant he was from England – or Wales or Scotland or Ireland – which was too far away, but at least he spoke English too, which was better than nothing.)

He wondered if Blue would be angry if Gellert were to take revenge on a couple of bullies. He probably wouldn’t want Gellert to hurt his brother. People were weird about siblings, Gellert was learning. Maybe it was better to just sit nearby when his wizard was despairing like this. Offer to hold his hand, if he wanted. Offer to go explode things together, if that would be better.

Gellert put down his sketchbook. Pancakes, he remembered. He wondered if there was fruit to go with them. Strawberries, maybe. He got out of bed and stretched and went down the stairs.

His mother was standing at the sink, already rinsing her plate.

“Oh, good. I was afraid I was going to miss you.” Gellert stood next to her and she bumped against his hip with hers. "Sorry, wet hands or I'd hug you."

“You’re going out?” he asked.

“Unfortunately, yes. I never did my share of the Christmas shopping. I don’t suppose you want to come out with me?”

This early? Probably not. “Where are you going?”

Gellert’s dad stared at his mom, his jaw set and his eyes wide. It was the look he gave her when she had forgotten that they were keeping something from Gellert.

Gellert’s mom’s look when his dad forgot was totally different – her hands would tense and she would close her eyes, tip her face up towards the ceiling, and take a deep breath. Then, on the exhale, she would open her eyes and look at his dad with a little shake of her head, as if to say, ‘that breath saved your life.’ It wasn’t even that his dad screwed up with bigger secrets than his mom – they were pretty much equally bad at it. But Gellert had seen his grandma make that same gesture. Mom had probably learned it from her.

“You can’t take Gellert with you, Jodie. _Remember?_ ”

She was buying something _for him_ , then. Gellert thought it was funny that Dad didn’t just say that. It was not a particular surprise that he was going to be getting _something_ from them for Christmas. Though Dad was right – Mom remembering _after_ she had told Gellert where she was going would have made whatever it was less of a surprise.

“Oh! Oh, right. How about this – I’ll take you out tomorrow. If you want.”

“You have no idea of your schedule when school is not in session, do you?” Dad laughed, shaking his head. “We are _both_ taking him out tomorrow. We are going into the City. We have tickets for the Cloisters.”

The Cloisters! “Oh my God! Really?!”

Gellert hadn’t been to the Cloisters since he was ten. It was one of the most magical No-Maj places that he knew. Every art museum was magical in its own way, but the Cloisters was filled with art from before the separation of the No-Maj and Magical worlds – even the buildings were assembled from the remnants of medieval buildings brought over stone by stone from Europe, and not all of them had been quarried and carved by hand. Gellert remembered feeling as if he were being welcomed home the first time he had gone, being surrounded by so much magic. It would feel different now, he was sure, after spending months at a time at Ilvermorny, but still. The Cloisters!

“Really.” His mother kissed him on the top of his head. “You're almost too tall for me to do that anymore." That made Gellert feel a little sad. Maybe she could stand on the stairs to kiss him on the top of his head, if he got any taller. "You two be good. With a little luck, I’ll see you for lunch.”

“Good luck!” Gellert and his father called out, just before the door closed behind her.

Dad carried a plate of pancakes to the table, and sat down at his own place with a cup of coffee. There was only one plate, and it was at Gellert's place. Dad had probably already eaten with Mom. Gellert sat and started buttering pancakes. "No strawberries?"

"' _No strawberries?'_ How about, 'Thanks for breakfast, Dad?'"

Gellert rolled his eyes. "Yes, obviously. Thanks for breakfast. And - oooo... warm blueberry syrup! Excellent."

"That's more like it," his dad said with a smirk. "There's bacon, too."

Gellert was torn about the bacon. It smelled wonderful, and tasted wonderful, but his best friend, Vinda, was a vegetarian, and she looked so _mournful_ whenever he ate meat in front of her. He decided that what Vinda didn't know couldn't hurt her, and he took two slices.

“I was surprised to see you actually using a pencil this morning, Gell. Usually when you get home you spend all your time using your iPad. Is it not working? You need to tell me when it stops working so that I can – ”

“Hmm? No, it’s fine.” Gellert only used the iPad for images he wanted to spend time perfecting, making minor adjustments to, adding shading and highlights. And he liked keeping his ‘sad wizard’ drawings all in one place. “I’ll be using it later. Although – I have an idea for a painting.”

“Oh? And where are you going to put it?”

Dad was right - Gellert’s walls were full.

“I was going to take everything down and then start over – make new choices.”

There were some pictures that Gellert hadn’t seen in a long time. And some that were hanging up now that embarrassed him with how simple they were.

“What’s your Wizard going to be doing this time?”

“Blue.”

“Blue?” His dad asked, looking confused.

“I’m calling him ‘Blue’ now. Vinda said that she understood why I didn’t want to give him a pretend name, but that it wasn’t disrespectful for me to give him a _nickname_ , to make it easier to talk about him.”

“You told Vinda? About… Blue?”

“Mmmhmm. And she said that saying, ‘my wizard,’ _was_ disrespectful, because it denied his autonomy or whatever.”

Really, she had said that Blue would find Gellert’s possessiveness _creepy_ , and then they had had a big argument about her calling him creepy and possessive, and they didn’t speak to one another for days. They just scowled at each other over meals and aggressively avoided one another in the common room. By the weekend, Gellert couldn’t stand it any longer. He had taken her for a walk around the potions garden, and they had had it out again, but with less shouting and more listening and no running away – and in the end, Gellert had agreed to stop calling Blue ‘my wizard’ _out loud_ , and Vinda had agreed that the ways in which Gellert _meant_ ‘my wizard’ were not creepy, and they had been friends again. Which was important, because Vinda was the only person Gellert was close enough to to trust with the truth of who this wizard was to him.

“So – Blue, then. And you named him Blue, because…?”

“His eyes are blue. And some of his favorite clothes are blue. Or… I don’t know if they’re his favorites – some of _my_ favorites of his clothes are blue. And…” Gellert sighed. “And I don’t think that he’s very happy right now. Or – maybe it is that sometime in the recent past he wasn’t happy? I don’t know. It’s hard to say, since I don’t know really how old he is right now. Mostly, when I see him my age and a little younger, he looks unhappy, one way or the other. Not always. But a lot. But I didn’t tell Vinda that part. I only said – see, she wanted to call him _Red_ , and I know we call that color of hair ‘red,’ but it isn’t red, really, is it? Not like a fire engine. It is more like… orange almost, but not exactly. It’s complicated. Like – fire. And I _love_ his hair, but maybe he doesn’t want to be defined by it? I don’t know. It’s… I didn’t want to call him that. So, I said, ‘no, Blue.’ For his eyes.”

“That’s fair. I’m sorry he’s unhappy. That must be… No, _you_ tell me what it is. I know how it would feel for _me_ , if I knew your mother was sad, and there was nothing I could do about it for _years_ , maybe. How does it feel for _you?_ ”

“It makes me feel _useless_.”

Gellert was surprised to hear himself say that. He had meant to say something else. ‘Frustrated,’ maybe. That was a word his mom encouraged. ‘That must feel frustrating for you,’ was something she said _a lot_. But now that Gellert had said, ‘useless,’ that seemed truer than anything else he could have said.

“Hmm. Well, I think it is probably important that you are both learning how to be friends with other people and figuring out how to be yourselves without each other. It might make you actually more useful to him later on.”

That sounded like some bullshit, but Gellert just nodded as if he agreed and kept eating his pancake. He reached for – there was nothing to drink at his place.

“Orange juice?” he asked.

“You’ve got legs,” his dad answered.

Great. He and Mom must have been talking about _parent_ things. That was something his _mom_ said. Dad usually just got stuff for him. Gellert looked at his dad pitifully and sighed.

Dad laughed. “Nice try, but _no_. You have been tall enough to reach the glasses for a long time.”

Gellert considered whether to say that he didn’t need anything, after all, but in reality, he _did_ need something to drink. He went to get a glass of juice and brought it back to the table.

“Ok, so, you are making a painting. Can I sit with you?”

Yes! Gellert had been hoping his dad would sit with him. No one in his dorm played guitar, and even if they did, they wouldn’t play it like Dad did. Dad had been playing for years and years, and he was good enough that people _paid_ him to play, sometimes. He didn’t get paid a lot. He wasn’t famous or anything. But he made enough to live on which was a _big deal_. Lots of people played guitar, and not many of them could say that.

“Sure, if you want.”

“If I want, huh?” Dad laughed. “Good enough for me.”

Gellert carried his plate over to the sink without being asked, so that he wouldn’t have to hear ‘you have legs’ again. Before he could make it to the stairs, his dad asked, “Can I see them?”

“See what?”

“The – uh – Blue? When he’s sad? You have drawings of him like that, I’m guessing. Or a painting, or… something.”

 _No one_ had seen the sad drawings. No one even _knew_ about the sad drawings besides Gellert... Dad, now, if Gellert wanted to acknowledge that he was right.

“Sketches. They’re not very –“

“They’re personal, I know. I – here’s the thing. I’m feeling kind of useless about you feeling useless. And when I feel useless I –“

“- write a song with no words?” Gellert finished for him.

“Write a song with no words,” Dad agreed. “And I thought – I would like to write some music for a boy who is feeling sad, and for another boy who is feeling useless because he loves the sad boy and is too far away to help. Maybe, if I’m lucky, the sort of music that makes the useless-feeling boy feel more hopeful.”

“Ok… but…”

“I thought I’d have a better shot at writing the right song if you could share these sketches with me. Because I bet that I would see your feelings in the lines, just like you hear my feelings in the notes. It’s how I know you – umm. That painting of him wearing the skirt, with the wind in his hair? And he’s laughing?”

Ugh. He needed to repaint that memory. He had _not_ executed it very well. Of course, he had been only seven at the time.

“Yeah?”

“That’s the painting that convinced me that he was someone I wanted you to meet. And the digital painting you made of him making a sandwich?”

Oh Lord. That one was _ridiculous_. He had spent several days on it the summer just past, getting it exactly right. Blue had a jar of mayonnaise in one hand, and he was gesturing with the knife in his other. It was a still drawing – Gellert didn’t know how to animate the No-Maj way, and his magic didn’t work to manipulate digital images. He wished he had made an animated pencil sketch of that dream as well, because what happened next was that a blob of mayonnaise fell off the knife as he swung it around, and he got a very surprised look on his face, and then looked down and blushed and chewed on his bottom lip. But then Gellert had said... he didn't remember what to him, but it was something that made Blue look up at him and laugh. Gellert liked that he was the one who had made Blue stop feeling embarrassed and start laughing instead.

“There’s something affectionate in the details of that digital painting. That was when I knew for certain that you’re in love with him.”

 _“Dad!”_ Gellert protested, blushing.

“So – I – I figure, if I want to really know how you _feel_ , I should see how you _draw_. Or paint or whatever.”

Gellert shook his head and rolled his eyes. His dad was so – persistent. But it was kind of sweet, actually, the reason why he wanted to see the drawings.

“Yeah, ok.”

Gellert ran upstairs to get the sketchbook, then he brought it back down and set it in front of his dad. But Dad didn’t open the book. He stood up and took the sketchbook into the living room. Gellert followed after him. His dad sat on the sofa and gestured for Gellert to join him. Gellert sat beside him, and his dad put his arm around Gellert and pulled him close. _Then_ he opened the book.

The first sketch was animated, like most of the drawings in the book. But Gellert had found a way to make them freeze at the end, so that it would be safe for a No-Maj to pick up. He touched the drawing: Blue entered his bedroom at home, shut the door behind him, and flopped face first onto the bed. He just lay there with his back rising and falling with his breathing a few times before the picture stilled again.

His dad looked at him. “I didn’t know you could do that.”

“It’s something new I’ve been working on.”

“It’s remarkable – this will make having friends and family over a lot easier, Gell. This is huge.”

“Thanks, yeah. It’s easy now, but it took some time to learn.”

His dad turned the page and watched Blue stroke his sister’s hair while she lay with her head in his lap. He looked worried.

His dad turned another page. Blue was on a train and another child bumped into him, knocked his books out of his hands _on purpose._

Next came the one of Blue curled up under the covers crying. Gellert didn’t animate that one for his father.

But he did animate the one of Blue throwing the inkwell. He thought that was pretty cathartic, actually. He liked seeing his wizard get angry. Anger was taking action – not letting the emotions just strangle you inside.

The next one Gellert didn’t really understand. It was just his wizard reading a letter. He didn’t know what the letter said, and he wasn’t sure exactly how he knew that it was bad news, because there wasn’t much of an expression on Blue’s face, but – _there wasn’t much of an expression on Blue’s face_ , and he was usually so expressive. It was like he was just – closed off. He was a little older in that one, which was more unusual for these sad ones. He looked like a sixth year, maybe? Older, but not a lot older.

His dad set the book off to the side. He didn’t say anything, just kissed Gellert’s temple and held him a little more tightly.

Usually, Gellert liked just being quiet together with his dad, but right now, he needed not to be alone with his thoughts without a pencil in his hand after looking at so many of those drawings.

“So, do you want to –“

“Gell. Those are – those are beautiful. Devastating, but beautiful. You – you can really see who he is. Who _you_ are. How you feel about him. I – thank you. For sharing them.”

“Don’t tell Mom? She’ll want to talk about every single one of them, and I just – cannot.”

“Marriage is weird, Bud. It’s hard not to tell each other things. I can make a compromise, though. I won’t tell your mom until after you’ve gone back to school, and that gives her two and a half months to forget, and you two and a half months to come up with a strategy for keeping her talking about other stuff for the week of Spring Break. Deal?”

It was the best he was going to get. “Yeah, fine.”

Gellert pulled away from his dad, who released him. Gellert stood and looked down at his dad, who was looking down at the closed sketchbook.

“You can look at the rest if you want. It’s just – that was enough for me, for one day. Bring the book up when you come?”

“Are you sure that’s ok? I don’t have to –“

“No, it’s – “ He wondered for a moment how Blue would feel about having such private moments documented and shared. “Hmm. No, you’re probably right.” Gellert reached out his hand and his dad handed him the book.

“I’ll just grab the Ovation…”

Gellert thought about something a friend of Aunt Angela’s had said that past summer. He needed to start drawing from life. His wizard was real, but he was drawing him from memory every time, and that might be slowing down his rate of improvement with drawing faces. And hands. And – everything. And Blue wasn’t the _only_ person he cared about. Now that he was dividing time between school and home, he wasn't even the only person Gellert cared about that he didn't get to see. His painting could wait.

“Dad? Is it ok if I draw you while you play?”

“You want to draw _me?_ ”

“Yeah, I mean – if it’s ok –“

“I’ll be moving.”

“Not so much. You’ll be still _enough_. And anyway, maybe this way we’ll get a moving drawing out of it.”

His dad’s jaw got tight, the way it did when he was pretending not to be emotional about something. Gellert didn’t know what the big deal was. It was just a drawing. He drew all the time.

His dad stood abruptly and slapped his legs and nodded. “Yeah, I’d like that,” he said. He hurried out of the room, calling behind him, “I’ll meet you upstairs.”


End file.
